Chronic Overthinking… Full Time Nursery

[Poppet05]

Hi All,
I thought I might turn to MN to maybe get some thoughts from people on here.
Ive got a 3 month old, and i’m incredibly grateful to my partner in that I am able to have a year off on Maternity leave to spend with my little girl. As it stands, we have been able to get her a spot at what appears to be an amazing nursery in our area and she will be approx 14 months old when she starts.

I feel Social Media maybe has possibly got into my head a little as I have no choice right now but to send her to nursery 5 days a week. My job won’t allow me to go part time sadly and I do really enjoy working there with the flexibility they allow for children and just in general. Like most I guess I turned to social media to try to find mums in the same position to hopefully feel I’m not alone or a terrible mum.…but I’m coming across more mums who are part time or have family help (we don’t have this).

Am I doing the right thing?

I came across your posf as I am in the same boat. I have to send my DCs to FT nursery. However my employer is flexible. If they’re sick, I just pick them up no problem. I also WFH so all the chores are done over my lunch break and we also have a cleaner. This means my DCs get my FULL attention when home and I am never a flustered mum trying to get stuff done with them. I was also feeling guilty for working FT but then realised we can do late drop offs, early pick ups with picnics in the park after nursery because there’s nothing else left to do at home but bathtime 😊

We have a lot of full time babies and they are the ones that tend to be most settled once they are settled so long as they have the same care givers each day. Check that the nursery has a solid core of staff in the baby room would be my advice. There will be different people at different parts of the day but they should be the same people through the week.

Also keep in mind that full time babies get tired and need a break now and again as the nursery day is noisy and busy. So like you need a break from work now and then schedule in regular time off for your baby as well as yourself.